


the only room with a view (is a room with you in it)

by minuted



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Social Media, Two Dumb Boys In Love, mix two centenarians and instagram and what do you get? this apparently, post tws and disregards everything after
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 19:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13934208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minuted/pseuds/minuted
Summary: Bucky switches the orientation of his camera, and without any warning, hauls Steve around so the skyline is behind both of them. “Smile!” he exclaims, not even giving Steve time to react before the camera goes off.“Hey, I wasn’t ready!” yelps Steve. Bucky looks incredible as ever in the picture, relaxed and carefree, while Steve’s face looks - well, as the kids would say about his startled expression,pretty fucking relatable.[or: Steve, Bucky, and Instagram stories. It goes about as well as you’d expect.]





	the only room with a view (is a room with you in it)

“Hey, Stevie,” calls out Bucky from his spot on the balcony, “Get out here.”

“Do I have to?” mutters Steve, as he puts down his book and heads out to where Bucky is. He’s leaning against the sleek railing of the balcony and looking out at the New York skyline, and Steve can’t help but take notice of the way his sharp profile and dark hair tied back in a loose tail contrast against the cloudy blue sky and lines of skyscrapers in the background. His fingers itch for his sketchbook, as they tend to do whenever he’s around Bucky.

“Heard that, you lazy ass,” says Bucky, turning to look over at him critically. “Imagine the headlines: Captain goddamn America, not wanting to get off the couch.”

“The kids would probably call me relatable or something,” replies Steve, grinning at the thought. It’s not like they aren’t already doing that, though; just a few months ago, a sudden wave of unfortunately candid pictures of Steve tagged _#CapFails_ had taken over Twitter (he could’ve sworn there hadn’t been anyone around the time he’d gotten distracted and run into a tree, but apparently not), and half of them had been retweeted with captions like “honestly same tho” or “#relatable af”.

Steve couldn’t even find it in him to be annoyed. They were pretty funny, actually; even he’d laughed when he’d seen the one where he’d shaken the hand of someone offering a fist bump and ended up shaking their fist. He’d retweeted that one, and Tony hadn’t stopped talking about him for weeks.

“ _The kids_ ,” scoffs Bucky, grabbing Steve’s wrist and tugging him over so the two are tucked into each other, side by side. “You do know we’re not even that old ourselves, right?”

“I dunno,” replies Steve easily, settling his arm against Bucky’s waist. “I don’t think I can keep up with all their _goshdarn newfangled technology_ \- back in the day, we got by with _tin cans_ and _string_ and _carrier pigeons_ , and -”

“Shut your hole, Steve, you have eighty million Twitter followers.”

“Twitter? Is that some kind of modern bird?”

Bucky punches him lightly on the arm, grinning. “Any one tell you you’re a punk?”

“Yeah, you.”

Laughing, Bucky rests his head on Steve’s shoulders, a mirror through time of how Steve, a foot shorter and filled with rage, would lean against Bucky every chance he got. Steve, on impulse, places a kiss on the top of Bucky’s head. Gazing out at the horizon, it’s hard not to marvel at how far they’ve come - how many trials by fire and how much freezer burn (he stifles a laugh at the thought) they’ve both endured to find themselves here, in a world with space travel and WiFi and instant coffee and so much more than he could’ve ever dreamed of, even at the Stark Expo - the night before Bucky had left for the war that he would only be free of of seventy-odd years later. A world where he can do this, where he can kiss the love of his life without fear.

 _It isn’t perfect_ , Steve thinks, _but it’s alright. We’re alright._

“Still trying to figure out what Twitter is?” asks Bucky, jolting him from his time capsule thoughts.

“Nah,” laughs Steve. “Just thinking ‘bout how I still don’t have as many followers as President Obama.”

“Pretty sure even Captain America can’t beat that guy, no matter how many aliens he punches.” Despite how much impressive Stark technology they see and how many ridiculous enemies they face, Bucky’s yet to get over the fact that the aliens from the pulp fiction novels he devoured growing up are real. It’s one of the weirdest parts of the future for him, right up there with having a wall in the goddamn _Smithsonian_ dedicated to him.

“Hey, by the way.” Bucky straightens suddenly, reaching into the pocket of his sweatshirt (he’s completely embraced the culture of wearing oversized sweatshirts, and Steve is so here for that) and pulls out his phone.

“Did you notice my sweatshirt?” he says absentmindedly, fingers flying over the phone. Tony had modified the metal fingertips of his left arm a few months ago so they’re conducive for smartphones, and unlike Steve, he doesn’t seem to have the problem with hitting multiple keys as he types.

Curious, Steve looks down at Bucky’s sweatshirt, and snickers. The iconic Captain America shield, of all things, is boldly emblazoned on the front of his light grey sweatshirt, and Steve rolls his eyes.

“Where’d you get it?” he asks, looping an arm loosely around Bucky’s neck.

“Gift from Tony.” Bucky’s smirking, the bastard, and Steve feels completely vindicated in flipping up the hood of Bucky’s sweatshirt and tightening it, yanking on the two drawstrings. The face Bucky makes is absolutely adorable, nose scrunched up indignantly and face framed by the creased ends of the hood with a few strands of hair falling in his eyes, and Steve quickly pulls out his phone and snaps a picture.

“Hey, fuck you,” retorts Bucky, but there’s no malice behind it and he’s grinning as he pushes back his hood and continues scrolling through his phone. The home screen takes him to a folder titled “social media shit” and an app with a white camera icon over a gradient background -

“Since when do you have an Instagram?” says Steve, leaning over to get a better look.

“Since last week, Nat wouldn’t shut up about it. She said I need somewhere to put pictures of my face besides your text messages.” He snickers, suddenly. “Doubt she knows that it ain’t pictures of my face I’m sending you, then.”

Embarrassingly, Steve feels himself turn beet red, as his mind instantly flashes to the countless times his phone has gone off during the middle of an Avengers briefing with some… _interesting_ images from Bucky. Clint had peeked over once and had to leave the room, he was laughing too hard. And Steve can remember every time that’s happened, _damn_ his eidetic memory.

“Hey, look at that, I didn’t know people could turn that color.”

“You weren’t saying that last night.”

Bucky looks quizzically at him for an instant, before cracking up. “That doesn’t even make _sense_ , punk.”

“Well,” says Steve weakly, casting around for a comeback before settling on, “ _you_ don’t make sense.”

“Fuckin’ idiot,” mutters Bucky, rolling his eyes. “No wonder they only send you out to punch people, you’re shit with words.”

“I’ll have you know,” protests Steve, drawing himself up to his full height with all the fake righteous indignation he can muster, “that my speeches were crucial to the war effort, and -”

“‘ _A bullet in the barrel of your best guy’s gun_ ’, yeah, yeah. My memory ain’t perfect, but I’m pretty sure I remember hearing ‘bout people throwing tomatoes at your ugly mug.”

“My ugly mug? Last I checked, I was the heroic one in all those comics, and you were the thirteen year old in the background -”

Bucky groans. “Don’t fucking mention those comics, or I swear to God, I’ll throw you off this balcony.”

“Nah, you wouldn’t, you like me too much.”

“More like someone’s gotta’ haul your ass out of trouble all the time.” Bucky looks down at his phone and taps on a little icon in the bottom right corner of the screen. A profile pops up, with a black and white candid of him in the top left corner and his name and a little blue icon beneath it. At the top of the screen reads _**imbuckybarnes**_ , and beneath his description is rows and rows of pictures. Steve plucks the phone from Bucky’s hand and scrolls through his posts.

“Hey, look at that, you’ve got five million followers,” Steve remarks as he looks through Bucky’s posts. A nice shot of a cup of coffee against a sunrise; a short clip of Bucky making his way through the obstacle course in the common gym, flashing a grin at the camera as he flips his grip on his knife effortlessly; the fingers of his metal hand carding through the fur of an energetic looking golden retriever; Bucky, smirking wickedly at the camera pointed at a mirror, shirt conspicuously missing. Not surprisingly, the comments on that one were…incoherent, to say the least.

“I’ll beat you someday, Rogers,” says Bucky, taking back his phone. “Oh hey, check this out.” He scrolls back up and taps on the little blue icon next to his profile picture, and a camera opens up. “Nat said it’s called a story or something, apparently they ripped it off Snapchat.”

“Off Snap-what?”

“Seriously?” When Steve shrugs, he mutters something indiscernible (even for Steve’s enhanced hearing), before continuing resignedly, “Ask Tony, he’ll set one up for you.” He switches the orientation of his camera, and without any warning, hauls Steve around so the skyline is behind both of them. “Smile!” he exclaims, not even giving Steve time to react before the camera goes off.

“Hey, I wasn’t ready!” yelps Steve. Bucky looks incredible as ever in the picture, relaxed and carefree, while Steve’s face looks - well, as the kids would say about his startled expression, _pretty fucking relatable_.

“Nope, no way in hell are you posting that.” Steve hastily taps on the little _x_ in the corner, and the camera refreshes.

“Got an idea,” muses Bucky, face screwed up in consideration before looking back at Steve and God, that smirk can only mean disaster. “Kiss me.”

Steve blinks. “What?”

Bucky sighs. “We’ve been over this, Steve, you take those,” he taps Steve’s lips with his finger, “and put them here.” He points exaggeratedly at his own lips.

“You taught me that when I was sixteen,” says Steve, with a long-suffering sigh, “pretty sure I got the hint. Give it here.” He grabs the phone, and holds it out in front of them.

“I could’ve done that,” says Bucky.

“My hands are longer than yours.”

“I got something else that’s longer than yours.”

“You know that ain’t true, Buck, don’t kid yourself.” WIth that, he leans over and lands a gentle kiss on the corner of Bucky’s mouth, and feels Bucky smile into the kiss as the shutter goes off.

“Finally,” says Bucky, as he takes back his phone and starts swiping through filters before he settles on a tasteful black and white one. “Gimme a caption.”

“Hashtag _Buck Rogers_ ,” Steve quips; he watches Bucky, to his surprise, type that in and post the picture on his story. It’s surprisingly candid, endearing in its sweetness and enduring in the timelessness of them against the familiar Manhattan skyline - the kind of thing he’d want to put in his sketchbook. He makes a mental note to screenshot the story and use it as a reference.

“Guess we’re famous now,” says Bucky, tucking his phone back in his pocket.

“Because we weren’t before?” asks Steve, sarcastically, as he reaches out and takes Bucky’s hand in his own.

“Just you wait, Stevie, this is going to be a new type of famous.”

“Bet you a dollar Fox News brings it up.”

“We don’t live in the fucking _thirties_ anymore, Stevie, I think you can afford to wager more than that.” Leaning against Steve and tucking his hand into Steve’s back pocket, he adds, “Besides, I’m not going to bet on something we both know’s going to happen.”

“It’s going to be hilarious.”

“Pepper’s going to be so mad.”

“It’s fine, we’ll get her an Edible Arrangement or something.”

* * *

Bucky’s Instagram story is one of the most viewed of all time, and his follower count doubles. Fox News, predictably, is all over it, and Tony loses his mind over the fact that “my two childhood icons are _fucking_ , Bruce, no you don’t _get_ it I had _posters_ of them up in my _room_ and I didn’t even _know!_ ” Apparently they’re now called “Stucky” (Steve thought “Buck Rogers” was a thousand times better, but the American public has a tendency to make bad decisions), and Steve’s been dubbed “ _the bisexual America deserves_ ”; Bucky, meanwhile, is apparently “ _goals as fuck_ ” by virtue of the fact that he gets to make out with Captain America on the regular.

It’s ridiculous. Steve wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr [@tvchalla](http://www.tvchalla.tumblr.com) or [@penelopeclearwater](http://www.penelopeclearwater.tumblr.com), and maybe reblog the [post](https://tvchalla.tumblr.com/post/171507180507/the-only-room-with-a-view-is-a-room-with-you-in)?
> 
> didn't write this for the occasion, but i'm posting it on the same day - happy birthday, bucky!!


End file.
